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For Whom The Bell Trolls
For Whom The Bell Trolls is the ninth episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The dream ending to this episode has become infamous amongst fans as one of the most contrived ways to wrap up a plot ever done in the franchise. Synopsis In a dream, Rita Repulsa casts a spell bringing Trini's doll Mr. Ticklesneezer to life. She then orders him to capture the Rangers for her. He manages to trap Trini, and Billy. Now the other Rangers must find a way to free their friends, and stop Mr. Ticklesneezer's collecting spree, before they too end up a part of his collection. Plot It's Hobby Week at Angel Grove High. In Miss Appleby's class, the Rangers each present their hobbies. Trini shows off her dolls, including Mr. Ticklesneezer. Jason does a bo staff demonstration; Zack talks about surfing with his surfboard at hand; Kimberly does a handstand on the teacher's desk; and Billy brings in a miniature volcano set. Bulk and Skull heckle the Rangers' hobbies; even Skull, who normally has a crush on Kimberly, is criticizing her skills. When the kids are dismissed, Bulk and Skull play keep away with Trini's doll but they end up making a mess thanks to Billy's volcano. Billy and Trini laugh. That night, Trini prepares for bed and puts Mr. Ticklesneezer on her nightstand, turning off the lights. Rita wants Mr. Ticklesneezer, so Squatt sneaks into Trini's room at night when she's asleep. Using some kind of gadget, Squatt makes Ticklesneezer life sized. The two teleport to Rita's palace. Rita learns that Ticklesneezer magically collects things in Goody Bottles and orders him to capture the Rangers. He's not inherently evil so he's a little reluctant to listen to her. The next day, Billy helps Trini look for her missing doll. The two, while driving in Trini's car, run into the grown Ticklesneezer. He sucks them into his Goody Bottle, as well as many other objects in the city (including planes and trains). Zordon alerts the other three Rangers to go help their comrades. The Rangers morph and go to the railyard where Goldar, Baboo, Squatt and the Putties are. Ticklesneezer trips and loses the bottle with Trini and Billy inside. Pink Ranger grabs it, but Goldar knocks it out of her hand and on to the railroad tracks. Pink Ranger manages to save it before the train runs over it. After escaping, Billy and Trini morph. Rita, in a balcony of some apartment, orders Ticklesneezer to collect the Rangers. He refuses because he doesn't have a bottle. She makes him grow. Ticklesneezer captures the Megazord as a goody, but Red Ranger's summoning of the Mega Sword frees them from the bottle. Megazord takes a bottle and begins to suck up Rita and her goons, but they teleport away. The Rangers tell Ticklesneezer to return everything back to its original place. Trini then wakes up and realizes that it was all just a dream. She panics when her doll isn't in its place on her nightstand, but is relieved when she finds it mysteriously on the floor. She states that she really has too much Rita on her mind and falls asleep again, holding her beloved doll. The next day, as Hobby Week is about to come to an end, Bulk and Skull show their hobby to the class - their flea circus. However, all the fleas escaped and are crawling all over Miss Appleby. Cast *Austin St. John as Jason Lee Scott (Mighty Morphin Red Ranger) *Thuy Trang as Trini Kwan (Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger) *Walter Jones as Zack Taylor (Mighty Morphin Black Ranger) *Amy Jo Johnson as Kimberly Ann Hart (Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger) *David Yost as Billy Cranston (Mighty Morphin Blue Ranger) *Paul Schrier as Farkas "Bulk" Bulkmeier *Jason Narvy as Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch *Royce Herron as Ms. Appleby *Machiko Soga as Rita Repulsa *Barbara Goodson as Rita Repulsa (voice) *Takashi Sakamoto as Goldar *Kerrigan Mahan as Goldar (voice) (as Ryan O'Flannigan) *Takako Iiboshi as Finster *Robert Axelrod as Finster (voice) *Minoru Watanabe as Squatt *Michael J. Sorich as Squatt (voice) *Hideaki Kusaka as Baboo *Dave Mallow as Baboo (voice (as Colin Phillips) *Tom Wyner as Mr. Ticklesneezer (voice) Notes *The episode title is a play on the classic novel For Whom The Bell Tolls. *First appearance of Squatt in American footage (which were the bedroom scenes). *First time that the theme song doesn't play during a Megazord fight. **It does however play briefly durong and after the morph sequence. *In addition to the above statment For Whom The Bell Tolls is also the name af a song from the heavy metal group Metallica. *It is revealed that Bulk and Skull's first names are Farkas and Eugene respectively (it later being revealed that their nicknames are the first syllables of their surnames). *Mr. Ticklesneezer was the monster of the day, but he wasn't really an enemy. He was created from a doll, not from Finster's usual clay models. *This is the only other episode between Day of the Dumpster and The Mutiny in which Goldar is seen with his wings. *As originally written, by Ronnie Sperling and Jeff Deckman, the episode did not end as a dream. The dream idea was added because the producers didn't want to end the episode with Ticklesneezer still around in the "real" world, and to give the events a sense of mysticism. The preceding events are not really consistent with the ending: Not only do several scenes supposedly part of the dream not feature Trini, but there are several scenes of Rita planning to use Mr. Ticklesneezer before Trini falls asleep, suggesting they occur in reality. **It was also probably changed whilst the episode was still being made due to a major plothole relating to Rita as mentioned in the Errors section. *First appearance of Miss Appleby, the Rangers' multi-subject teacher who would remain on the show until Turbo's Alarmed And Dangerous. Here, she is hosting Hobby Week and assigning an English/language arts assignment. *In Zyuranger, Mr Ticklesneezer was a fairy and not a troll who tried to get a job as Finisher's assistant but was fired and thrown back to Earth where he befriends a small Japanese boy so went around collecting buildings and such. He had no other associations with Bandora but she did make him grow although Boi\Trini made him see the error of his ways. Him and the child went back to normal size once Bandora fled after the bottle attack used here and him and the child went to live in his forest forever. **The reason for the infamous ending is because he was never destroyed and the ending of the Zyuranger episode was unusable due to the kid and the unmorphed Zyurangers. Errors *Outside and inside shots of Trini's bedroom window do not match. The window inside is much bigger than the external ones and the internal one has open curtains although all te ones shown from the outside are closed. *The initital Rita scene in the episode, after Trini's doll presentation, completely ruins the pacing of the episode due to it's placement in relation to the ending. This takes place before Trini goes to sleep before her dream yet this is the inciting incident for the plot of said dream? How does that work? There is no indication that Trini went to sleep before the episode began and everything up until she woke up near the end was a dream either. **This leads one to the idea that this episode was completely filmed or near the end of filming before producers forced Sperling and Deckman to change the ending because how else can this plothole exist? It would also explain why the episode has absolutely no fantastical elements that Power Rangers doesn't have anyway to indicate this is meant to be a dream. *After Miss Appleby gives her English assignment, she is not seen or heard stopping Bulk and Skull from playing keep away with Trini's doll. **She also mysteriously vanished from the classroom (as she is telling the kids to not forget to do the English assignment 'Question Marks: Why Do We Need Them?', she is next to her desk, but a second or two later after she finishes speaking, she's no longer at the desk and has disappeared, with the last of the non-Ranger students walking out and stepping away from the spot where Appleby was). ***It's possible she just left with the crowd when she finished speaking. **Before this happens, she also does not seem to notice or care that Bulk and Skull make commentary on Trini's doll collection or their own presentation on their flea circus, though she reacts when the fleas are crawling all over her at the end of the episode. The previous event occurs after the classroom bell sound effect is heard and while the students are filing out, respectively. **Additionally, in the shot where Trini goes to get her dolls, she can be seen walking over to them but is gone when Trini pulls the doll trolley out and is not seen again until after her presentation. *In the shot where Pink Ranger tells Billy and Trini to morph, her belt is missing. *The Megazord's weapon is again called the Mega Sword instead of Power Sword. *Because Sentai footage was used, one of the objects Ticklesneezer collected was Japan's Tokyo Tower, another one being a bullet train. *As the Rangers use one of Ticklesneezer's bottles to suck up Rita and her gang, an Asian boy wearing green can briefly be seen behind the Megazord. **This is the same boy he befriended in the Sentai who was grown with him and was the main reason he does basically nothing in this episode as much of his footage had to be replaced. *When Billy and Trini morph, the morphing sequence is in the wrong order (with Trini morphing before Billy). *Due to what is probably bad voice direction, Ticklesneezer's voice switches between his dunce voice and what is presumably Tom Wyner's natural speaking voice in his goodie collecting escapades when he first came to Earth. **This was most evident when he screeamed whilst falling to Earth and when he said "alright" after containing a motorcycle. See Also (fight footage and story) Category:Mighty Morphin 1 Category:Episode